SocGen in $1.4bn US settlement

Penalties are entirely covered by provision

PARIS/WASHINGTON: French banking giant Societe Generale SA agreed on Monday to pay US federal and state authorities $1.4 billion to resolve pending legal disputes.

The bank agreed to pay $1.34 billion to settle investigations into its handling dollar transactions in violation of US sanctions against Cuba and other countries, the bank and the US authorities said in separate statements.

Additionally, the bank said it agreed to pay $95 million to settle another dispute over violations of anti-money laundering regulations.

SocGen, as the bank is informally known, has been dogged for more than a year by a series of costly legal disputes. The last case it said remained to be settled was the one related to dollar transfers made on behalf of entities in countries subject to the US economic sanctions.

“We acknowledge and regret the shortcomings that were identified in these settlements, and have cooperated with the US authorities to resolve these matters,” chief executive Frederic Oudea said in a statement.

“These resolutions, following on the heels of the resolution of other investigations earlier this year, allow the bank to close a chapter on our most important historical disputes,” he added.

From 2003 to 2013, the bank executed billions of dollars in illegal transactions to parties in countries subject to embargoes or otherwise sanctioned by the United States, including Iran, Sudan, Cuba and Libya, the authorities said.

The fines were issued by the Federal Reserve, US Department of Justice, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the New York County District Attorney’s Office and the New York Department of Financial Services.

The $1.34 billion in penalties is the second largest imposed on a bank for violating US sanctions, according to the Manhattan US Attorney’s office.

SocGen’s French rival BNP Paribas SA agreed to pay $8.9 billion in a settlement on sanction violations in 2015.

SocGen has also signed deferred prosecution agreements, which provide that, following a three-year probation period, the bank will not be prosecuted if it abides by the terms of the agreements.

In a statement, the bank said the fine was entirely covered by the provision for disputes booked in its accounts and that the settlement would not have an additional impact on its results for 2018.

SocGen had a total provision of €1.58 billion to cover the financial cost the pending disputes could bring on its accounts.

In June, the bank had already agreed to pay $1.3 billion to authorities in the US and France to end the disputes over transactions made with Libya and over the suspected rigging of Libor, a key interest rate used in contracts worth trillions of dollars globally.

As part of the process to settle the Libor case, the bank had agreed in march to let go Didier Valet, its deputy CEO in charge of investment banking activities, who was widely seen as a potential Oudea successor.

SocGen had already paid €963 million in mid-2017 to settle another dispute with the Libyan Investment Authority.

The deferred prosecution agreements are subject to court approval in the United States.